Weather’s been a big monkey wrench for Saints spring sports

Wednesday

Apr 24, 2013 at 8:00 AM

The Athletic Director said a priority would be to look at ways to make up conference games. He said that double headers for softball might be an option. Usually for conference games, the Saints would play a conference foe at home and then travel to their field to play an away game on another day. Trying to get the two conference games in might mean the Saints will host one team to play a double header or travel to play a double header. One team would lose a home game.

Doug DeDeckerSt. James Plaindealer

“This is the worst spring weather I can remember as far as it impact on all spring sports,” St. James Athletic Director Les Zellmann said.

He continued, “At this point of the spring we’ve never had this many events canceled.”

As of Monday, the first six games of the baseball season, both home and away, have been canceled. Three of the first four softball games have been canceled.

The first three golf meets have been canceled. Hard to play golf when the course is under snow.

Tennis opened the season with an indoor tournament, but the next two meets were canceled. The Saints played at home on Monday in cold conditions and only because the snow blowers were used last week to clear the courts so they had a chance to be snow free.

Track opened with two indoor meets and got an outdoor home invitational in, even though all of the events couldn’t be held because the jumping pits were not dry enough.

Zellmann said all of the coaches are grumbling to a certain extent. “It’s frustrating for them,” Zellmann said.

The teams are at the point where games and meets aren’t going to be rescheduled, but will be canceled for the year.

The Saints athletic director as well as all athletic directors are scrambling to rearrange schedules. However, Zellmann said, “At this point track meets can’t be made up. Baseball games can’t be made up.”

Track invitational meets with three or four or more teams have big rescheduling problems. What might be a good date to reschedule for one team finds many of the other teams already booked to compete in another event on that day.

So multi-team invitationals for track or tennis, or softball, or golf are the hardest sporting events to reschedule.

The Athletic Director said a priority would be to look at ways to make up conference games. He said that double headers for softball might be an option. Usually for conference games, the Saints would play a conference foe at home and then travel to their field to play an away game on another day. Trying to get the two conference games in might mean the Saints will host one team to play a double header or travel to play a double header. One team would lose a home game.

The other problem according to Zellmann is that the ability to practice has been extremely restricted. He said kids are playing games without practice. Tennis might get some home meets in, but that’s in part because Zellmann used a snow blower to clear the courts.

Right now all the sports fields need warm, sunny, windy weather to dry out their playing courts and fields. The weather has not been delivering that. This week’s sports schedule is packed. Any cancellations will really jam up the end of April and May schedules.

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